Chapter Twelve
WILLY ARRIVED FOR A ROOM service breakfast at exactly six a.m. Soon we were brainstorming over warm croissants, asparagus and smoked salmon omelets, and plenty of black coffee.
“Richard is out of the question,” he said quickly. “I worked for him, remember. While he’s not stupid, his goons have the combined IQ of a bright monkey. They’d just shoot up the place, which wouldn’t be so healthy for Jack and my cousin.”
I agreed. “You think they’re being held at Reynolds’ Surrey warehouse then?”
“I know it. If they’re in Surrey, as Reynolds told April, that’s where they’ll be. It’s his front for a huge ivory smuggling operation. I work for him, remember.”
“Not elephant ivory!”
“Is there any other kind? But forget about the elephants for now. If we happen to get through this shit-show alive it can be Jillian’s new cause. Surely she’s getting bored with trees.”
Finally, we both smiled.
“She’ll love elephants, Willy. And just think about this. She’ll be off globe-trotting, tracking down the poachers, and we’ll finally get a break.”
Willy was thinking at record speed. “There’s a bunker in that warehouse. Below ground. It’s where they store the ivory. Ten to one our guys are there. I know that’s where I’d hide a captive if I had one. Or two.”
“And the plan, genius?”
“You and me. It has to be. I’m not saying you’re as smart as I am but you’re all I’ve got.”
“Thanks, pal.”
“Kidding! You’re the smartest PI I know and the only one I’d trust with my life.” He extracted a paper from his pocket. “I drew this in the middle of the night. It’s the warehouse blueprint as I remember it. I’ve circled the bunker entrance. It’s a door in the floor always covered by boxes. If you didn’t know it was there, it isn’t there.”
I took the paper from his hand. “And how do we get to this bunker?”
“By covering each other’s asses. I’m only guessing but here’s what I figure. There’ll be two guards outside. They’ll be patrolling with rifles. We’ll have to get by them first.”
“Any dogs?”
“No dogs. They won’t want to bring attention to themselves. They’ll be very quiet.”
“So fists? Joking!”
His round brown eyes twinkled. “Well, you can use fists but I’m not going to mess up my perfect pinkies. I was a magazine hand model, remember. Before I turned to bigger things.”
“Oh, right. Before you turned to crime. How old were you? Five?”
“I’m thinking tire irons. Or chains. Or both.”
I nodded. “That works for me. It’ll keep them out for a while. And when we’re inside?”
“I’m thinking three, possibly four guys at most. Maybe only two if we’re lucky. They have other jobs you know. Other people to kidnap and kill.”
“I get it. If Jack and your cousin are in a bunker it won’t take a lot of bodies to keep them there.”
“You got it. They’re likely bound so not much danger of their escaping. “
The last thing I remember was calling Peter and telling him to give us a half-hour start.
I was having bad dreams. I was in a bunker trying to save Jack and a bad guy shot me. He shot Jack too. So, I shot the bad guy and he shot me again. So, I shot him again. And then I died. All I could remember was hoping that Willy hadn’t died too.
Jack was in a wheelchair in this dream. And Jillian was kissing my cheek. That’s when I knew I really was dead.
And then I had another dream. I was in a speedboat with Jackie stowed under the bow. A much bigger boat was chasing us. Mini was behind the wheel and on top of the cannon sat little Reynolds the Wrap, readying to let the gun roar. He had a bag of cough drops in his hand and he wasn’t happy.
“I’m going to shoot the bastard!” he told his mother. “All I ever got from him was lies.”
After that bad dream I could hear Jillian crying. “I should have been nicer to him,” she told Jack in his wheelchair. “I was so mean!”
I figured I was in a coffin and my family – as screwed up as it was – had come to pay respects. It was nice of them. I hoped they had sprung for flowers. I deserved flowers.
Tony arrived to peak into my casket too. “Willy’s in surgery,” he said. “It doesn’t look so good. Shrapnel. A lot. And it didn’t take much to kill you, Charlie.”
I drifted off again. Being dead wasn’t so bad, when you thought about it. You didn’t have to worry about things, like who was trying to kill you and for what reason, because you were already deceased. I was playing tag with Willy in the garden at 33 Terrace Place. There were other children too, including a particularly pretty girl with a frilly dress and big blue eyes. I liked her right away but she liked Willy. Even after I picked a tulip and brought it to her she turned up her nose. Exactly! It failed by comparison next to the azalea branch Willy had offered up. So, I gave the tulip to Jillian who actually smiled before saying that she was going to tell Jack that I was raping the garden. Thanks a lot!
“Willy’s out of surgery,” I heard Tony say. “He’s tough and they say he has a fighting chance.”
There was quite a bit of sobbing going on. Jack was even sobbing. Funny how he didn’t sob when he found out I was dead. Guess he’d been prepared for it all along.
A soft hand was caressing my face. “You’re going to be alright, too, Charlie,” Julia said. “The doctors say you’re out of danger now.” I blacked completely out.
I don’t know how long I slept. It might have been minutes, hours or days. I only know that when I finally regained consciousness my room was full of flowers. And faces. It was like a flowering zoo.
“His eyes are open,” said Jack in the wheelchair. “He’s alive.”
“Praise the lord!” Jillian giggled as she stroked my face.
“Why are you patting me?” I managed to bark. “I am not an invalid.”
She liked that. “Oh, yes you are! You’ve been shot, remember. More than once.”
I tried to remember. “Twice?”
Jack wheeled his chair to my bed. “You don’t remember?’
I tried to shake my head.
“You shot me too. Accidentally.” His arm was bandaged.
“I did?”
Gales of laughter from the multitudes.
His round green eyes were wet. “No, son. You saved me. You don’t remember?”
“I don’t.” But I did remember bits and pieces. I remembered taking out the outside guards with Willy and sneaking inside the warehouse to hide behind steel beams and crates. There were three armed guards and Willy and I made a deal. I would rescue Jack and Jackie in the bunker while he covered me. Then I woke up in a hospital room.
“Willy’s ok?” I asked.
Tony came forward, his eyes also wet. “Like you he’s had surgery. But he’s pulled through. So far, at least. You’re two tough guys. And you saved our Jackie Jones. And Jackie Chan too.”
I blacked out.
When I came to life again nothing had changed. No one had gone home and my hospital room was still full of faces. Sammy in the Tree, Hughie and Bob Along, even Skid the Mark and Billy the Bookie.
“You’re taking up my oxygen,” I mumbled. “I can’t breathe.”
Jillian was still stroking my face. “You’ll have lots of time to breathe when we’re in Tahiti. Jack is sending us there for our honeymoon.”
So I really was dead. “Yeah, right.” I tried to laugh but it hurt. “What’s the catch?”
“He’s coming too.”
A lot of laughter went thundering around the room.
“And Julia and Peter are coming.”
From the corner of my eye I could see the pair snuggling together, great news. “I want to speak to Peter.”
He came forward, attached like Velcro to Julia. “Yeah, Charlie?
“What are your intentions with my aunt?”
“Marriage. I won’t
let her get away again.” He beamed into Julia’s eyes. “Ever.”
“You’d better not. But I need to know. Did you come to the warehouse?’
“We did. Robert Coppilani and I did, plus a contingent. A half hour after you, as per your instructions.”
“And?”
“It was pretty much over by then. We loaded up the outside guards and they were the lucky ones. Between you and Willy you killed the other three.”
I moaned. “I didn’t want to kill anybody! I just wanted to rescue our guys.”
Peter shrugged. “It was kill or be killed. You had no choice, especially since Mimi pulled Bugs Zee’s plug earlier in the day. No more life support for her precious son. You and Willy arrived just in time.”
I drifted off again but I could hear voices in the distance.
“Richard’s gone,” I heard Tony say. “The drapes are drawn and the blinds are shut. Back to Beijing, I’m guessing. I’m guessing he won’t be back for a while either. Maybe never.”
“So, he didn’t want to be my son,” Jack said flatly.
“Can you blame him?”
“Ha. Ha.”
Richard gone? I couldn’t even throw a party my gut hurt so much. But in my dream it was Christmas morning and Richard’s stocking was hanging from the mantel, a stocking that was all mine now. The spoils of war, I figured, as I munched his chocolate Santa. It was a Purdy’s Santa too, top of the line. Yummy. And it was about the best chocolate Santa ever, given that Santa had meant it for Richard. I hoped to never wake up.
But then there were the socks. After the chocolate Santas there were always socks. A ton of new socks stuffed into our stockings as filler, because Jack had run out of ideas. Or time. So, now I had my socks and Richard’s socks, enough for a soccer team, and I didn’t even like soccer. I didn’t like David Beckham, or Renaldo, or Wayne or Mickey Rooney. I only liked Totti. In fact, I still had a Totti jersey hanging in my closet which made me think I needed to draft a will. That jersey was worth something now and needed to be left to someone important to me. Jackie! I needed to leave Jackie my Totti jersey. So, maybe he wouldn’t grow into it but he just might father a big kid in future, if he managed to marry a big wife. But what did I know, being near-dead, and all?
“Richard was a fish out of water here,” Tony said.
Jack cleared his throat. “A piranha out of water, you mean. Not enough torture and killing for his liking.”
“Maybe. But we’ll hear from him again, guaranteed.”
I could hear Robocop’s big deep voice in the hallway. “Tell Charlie I’ll drop by in a day or two when he has more strength to visit. And I’ll bring his biker friend along too.”
Francesco Totti was almost as good-looking as me but not quite, I mulled. He liked pasta, as Italians do, but that’s where I got confused. I only liked pasta with spicy sausage. No cheese. Or was that pizza? Jackie loved pizza. I woke up in a sweat.
“Where’s Jackie?” I asked in a panic. “Is Jackie alright?”
The godfather was seated in a chair at the foot of my bed. “He’s alright, Charlie. Not a scratch on him. He hid in an empty crate when he heard gunfire. Although he was duct-taped he managed to knock the container over and crawl in. Lucky he’s not too big.”
“Where is he now?”
“Still in the cafeteria chowing down with Billy, I expect. He hadn’t eaten for days so he’ll likely eat for a week. I left a credit card so there’s no telling when he’ll stop. But he did tell me to give you a message.”
“Yeah? What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Tell Amster he needs to get a new hospital. There’s no fucking bubble tea here.”
Epilogue
IT WASN’T SO BAD BEING married to the girl of my dreams, it was awful. Apparently, I’d married Jillian, Jack, Julia, Tony, the mob, and even David in the alcove who still didn’t like me. But about the wedding in beautiful Tahiti…
With palm trees swaying in the breeze, Julia decided to steal the show by marrying Peter the morning of the afternoon we were to wed and by midday everyone was drunk. Plastered, in fact. Great. Since Jackie and Billy didn’t drink (Billy gave up alcohol after getting sick on a bottle of champagne) they took it upon themselves to dive into the wedding cake and demolish it. Only a few crumbs and bits of icing remained, mostly on the Chan boys’ new clothes. So much for our ushers looking dapper.
Drunken old Sammy sat in the shade of a talapa, rambling and mumbling something about kickboxing and looking forward to murdering Leo’s brother. If he had a brother. If not he was going to murder Leo’s cousin. And if he didn’t have a cousin he was going to murder his dad. All of this just before he passed out cold.
On the beach, Shoeshine met a lovely Polynesian woman about his size and quit us all. He wasn’t going to attend my wedding he was going to get himself laid, he said. Jack expected him back the minute he ran out of money, which would be soon, he thought.
Hughie and Bob Along were also looking to get laid and they did. But they had to pay for it, as usual.
Skid the Mark decided to swim with sharks and, now missing a torso, blamed me for his fear of water, of bathrooms, and rain.
Tony went on a crying jag and no amount of consoling from Maya appeased him. He thought Jillian was making a terrible mistake. And so did Billy the Bookie, who was capitalizing, as usual.
Even my best man, my best bud, Willy Chan, capitalized on the event. He picked up the wedding singer, a gorgeous Latino girl, and hadn’t stopped smiling since. He wasn’t coming back to Vancouver, he told me, while slapping my shoulder goodbye. Ever.
And Jack? Well. Jack brought a very special guest to the wedding. He’d spent so much time with Emily Chan at the foot of Willy’s hospital bed that the two were now an item. Billy the Bookie was taking bets on that too. About how soon they’d be having babies. He thought they should move near a school.
As for how I felt about Jack becoming my dad-in-law, well, I don’t think I have to spell it out for you. Nothing would change. It was just a matter of time before he had me in hot water again.
And my beautiful wife, Jillian? Worth it all, and then some, although I had to almost die to get her to like me. But about being married to a ferocious woman who was readying to stand trial for parole violation – plus the removal of an electronic bracelet, with a little help from Peter. I had no choice. I capitulated. I succumbed. I was done.
Done. Happy. Scared.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Book Two - Chapter One
Book Two - Chapter Two
Book Two - Chapter Three
Book Two - Chapter Four
Book Two - Chapter Five
Book Two - Chapter Six
Book Two - Chapter Seven
Book Two - Chapter Eight
Book Two - Chapter Nine
Book Two - Chapter Ten
Book Two - Chapter Eleven
Book Two - Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Jack in a Box Page 25
